


Guilt

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Mention of Minor Character Death, the relationship is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 15:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While waiting for Ross to be released from Truro jail, Dwight and Demelza have a conversation about guilt and blame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been wanting to write something between these two, in these circumstances, for a while. This hit me yesterday. Many thanks to rainpuddle13 for beta-reading. Sorry I made you cry, sweetie. Except I’m not sorry, obviously.
> 
> Please note this is _not_ spoiler-y for s2.

“Demelza, come and sit down. He won’t come back any quicker for you standing at the window.”

“No, no, I do know that,” Demelza said, distractedly. She stood at the parlour window, staring out across the front garden, her eyes fixed on the place where Ross, when he came from Truro, would come up the hill and into sight. He would come soon. He _must_ come soon. They could not hold him, surely they could not hold him longer. He had been in Truro jail for two days now, waiting to be seen by a magistrate. The charges would be dismissed, of course. Of course they would, for Ross was a gentleman, and a Poldark, and he had not done those things that they accused him of – pillaging a shipwreck, perhaps, but not for himself, and that had never been a serious crime in Cornwall. As for assaulting a customs official…no. No, the charges would be dismissed. They must be. 

She couldn’t lose him too. She couldn’t imagine how she could survive it.

“Demelza,” Dwight said again. He came closer to her, stood beside her at the window. Demelza glanced at him, saw the dark smudges beneath his eyes that matched those under her own eyes, and cringed away from thinking about how he had come to be so tired. Not just a mental response; she physically flinched, unable to control her own body’s reaction. She registered the shock on Dwight’s face, and he stepped away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said, very softly, as if he could barely manage to speak at all. “I didn’t mean…I’m sorry, I know you must despise me now.”

“Why on earth would I?” Demelza asked, bewildered. Dwight said nothing, and Demelza stared at him, barely able to comprehend the words, let alone the meaning behind them. “Dwight,” she said helplessly. “I don’t understand. Why do you think I’d despise you?”

Dwight shook his head and took another step backwards. “How could you not?” he asked, sounding just as helpless as she had. Just as hopeless. “And indeed,” he went on, “I do not blame you.”

“Dwight,” Demelza said. “Dwight, how could I ever despise you?”

“I couldn’t save her!”

The words seemed ripped from his mouth against his will, shouted into the empty parlour and striking Demelza like a blow. She staggered back, away from Dwight, and reached out with a hand to find some piece of furniture to keep her upright. She found the table, grasped hold of the edges of it and stared at Dwight, at her friend – at the doctor who had tended her through the putrid throat and who had tried to keep Julia alive.

“I couldn’t save her,” Dwight said again. He looked broken, somehow. He looked weary and pale and there was a brightness in his eyes. He tried to blink the tears away, but they welled up again. “I couldn’t save Julia. I am so, so sorry, Demelza.”

“Oh, Dwight,” she whispered. “Oh, no, Dwight. ‘Twas not your doing.” She wiped a hand across her face, almost angry to find herself crying again. She ought to have run out of tears by now; her eyes were sore and aching from it, her cheeks raw from being scrubbed dry. “Ross said,” she managed, “Ross said how much care you took, he said nobody could have done more. ‘Twas…’twas chance, that’s all.” It was horrible, it was agonisingly painful, but it was not Dwight’s fault. 

No, it was not _his_ fault. If there was anyone to blame for the situation, it was not Dwight. 

Demelza’s heart ached fit to bursting, and more tears rolled down her cheeks, into the corners of her mouth, saltiness on her tongue when she licked the tears away. She had kept the thought locked safe inside her mind, unspoken and unspeakable. Ross would never say it – though she knew his resentful nature would cause him to harbour the knowledge, would let it eat at him. _Oh God_ , she thought, _he will come to resent me, we shall lose all that we’ve had, because this was not Dwight’s fault, nor Ross’s, nor even the random blow of chance._

This was her fault.

“I’ve seen infants come through it,” Dwight was saying. “Even those you’d think would not – the poorest, most deprived creatures imaginable – they come through, sometimes, while a child who was otherwise fit and healthy and given the best of care…sometimes she dies.” His voice was cracking on the last few words. Demelza had never seen him cry before. She had only rarely seen Ross cry, either. Tears were not a manly thing, and yet looking at Dwight now, Demelza saw nothing weak or unmanly in him.

“’Twas not your fault,” she murmured. “You cannot think that I blame you for any of it. You…you are Ross’s greatest friend, and I like to think that we are friends also, now, and so…and so you must forget this idea, Dwight.” She pushed away from the table, reached out and grasped hold of his hand, tight enough that he would have to exert some force to pull away from her. “Please,” she said, “please don’t ever think I despise you.”

“Demelza…”

“It wasn’t your fault!” she declared, and felt her chin trembling, felt all her resolve trickling away as the tears trickled down her face. “It wasn’t, Dwight, so I won’t hear more. Julia was – it was chance, it was no lack of care, it was…” And then she crumbled, heart and body both, her knees giving way and only Dwight’s quick hand at her waist kept her from falling to the ground. “It was my fault,” she cried. “It was my fault, she’s dead because of _me_.”

It all came out of her then. She told Dwight that her daughter was dead because of her, because she had gone to Trenwith and tended the family there, all laid low with the putrid sore throat except Aunt Agatha. She had kept Geoffrey Charles alive through that long night, and she had kept Elizabeth and Francis comfortable, and then – oh God, then she had come home and changed her clothes and washed her hands, and she’d picked up Julia and helped her eat her supper, and changed Julia’s little day frock for a nightgown, and put her to bed. She had held her and breathed on her and she had given her daughter the illness.

Julia was dead because of Demelza. How could Ross ever forgive her for that? How could she ever forgive _herself_?

“Ross would never hold you responsible,” Dwight told her. His tears had ceased; hers had not. “If you tell me it was not my fault, that it was chance – then you must hold onto that truth for yourself, Demelza. You came home and touched Ross, did you not? You supped with him, spoke with him? Then he ought to have been ill also. This was _chance_ , Demelza, not your fault.” 

Demelza wanted to laugh, bitterly, but it caught in her throat and choked her. Dwight found her a glass of water, pushed it into her hands and made her drink. Her throat was still a little sore, but less and less as time went on. She sipped the cool water and wished, desperately, that Ross was here. But if he came now, and found her in such a state, it would only distress him. 

“Shall we make a pact, you and I?” she suggested at last, summoning a slight smile for Dwight, who hovered beside her as if afraid she might faint or falter at any moment. “’Twas not your fault, Dwight. Julia’s dying was not your fault.” She touched his arm and tried to show him her sincerity. Dwight covered her hand with his and gave a tight nod. “And you’ll keep that knowledge firm in your mind,” Demelza went on, “and not let doubts back in.”

“And you,” Dwight said gently, “will do the same. Is this what you mean? Shall we make a promise to each other that we will let go of our guilt – which I say you should not feel, and you say I should not?”

“Yes. Yes, that is what I should like.”

“Then I promise it gladly, Demelza,” said Dwight, “though I hope you’ll forgive me if I fail, on occasion.”

“I shall fail too,” Demelza whispered. “On occasion. We’ll have to remind each other.”


End file.
